


Blood is thicker than the ocean is deep

by RougueShadowWolf



Series: 15 Minutes [232]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cheating Claudia Stilinski, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Sheriff Stilinski and Deucalion are Brothers, Sheriff Stilinski is Not Stiles Stilinski's Parent, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 23:00:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20768369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RougueShadowWolf/pseuds/RougueShadowWolf
Summary: She’d feared the positive pregnancy test, and worried for many years that her husband would find out that the son he loved like a son wasn’t his, and eventually in a state of madness she planted her fears and worries into him as a last resort.





	Blood is thicker than the ocean is deep

**Author's Note:**

> The streets and buildings of this city has been infected with the grim nature of its people. This place untouched by sunlight and joy, is so ripe with lost souls and lonely hearts. This is the home of tragic tales. You can positively taste the pain, the sorrow, the misery of this place, and isn’t it just marvellous. 
> 
> Now before we begin this story, let me confess that this series of tales should’ve been uploaded back in the early days of August, but do to reason beyond my control it didn’t happen, and then I forgot or thought I had done it but obviously I hadn’t. If my dearest ItAlmostWorked! hadn’t gone searching for a couple of the stories that I wrote in the start of August, well, then we wouldn’t be here. 
> 
> Dearest of readers familiar with my series, do skip this part and head straight down to A SLIGHT CHANGE, but you who know not what this series is, please stay for a little while so I may help prepare you for what you shall find here. This series is a small payment to my friends (6 ancient ones wielding great power), friends who grant me a roadmap for these stories, stories that are then written in 15Minutes. Yes, I have 15Minutes to write a story, once the time is up, I have to present the story to them. Now due to the time restriction, these stories are written in a state of panic, here you shall find plenty of typos and dreadful grammar that will drive you mad. Now, that I have opened your eyes, warned you about terrible storytelling and dreadful writing, please make the best decision for yourself; if you can’t handle bad spelling, chaotic storytelling and so on, then please leave now and save yourself from pain undeserved. 
> 
> However, if you wish to risk suffering, and have a brave soul, please follow me down to A SLIGHT CHANGE. 
> 
> A SLIGHT CHANGE is a foot here, the time is still the same as always, but we’ve got to deal with Theme which this turn around is strangely enough Deucalion? How exactly is Deucalion considered a theme? Anyway, Deucalion is the theme but ThankTheTreesAndTheBees wanted a story where Claudia cheated on her husband with Deucalion and a little baby boy was created that night, and that baby is of course Stiles. And that’s what the good ThankTheTreesAndTheBees gave me to work with. 
> 
> Hi there, so, my attempt to post all of the August 15Minutes stories last week, but my brain started hating me and the end of the week was a bit too chaotic for me to get the job done, but let's hope I get it done this week. Wish me luck while I wish you a brilliant end to September and a glorious start to October.

The positive pregnancy test should’ve made her happy, more than happy, she should’ve been excited and eager to share the news. She and her husband had been trying to have a baby for almost five-years now, and long before that they’d been rather careless when it came to trying to preventing unplanned pregnancies since a baby would’ve been welcomed even back when the lived in a tiny apartment, but this unplanned pregnancy wasn’t a source of joy but rather dread.

Alarm bells were ringing inside her head as she stared down at the positive pregnancy test.

During all these years of being together Claudia and John hadn’t had a single pregnancy scare, not one. There hadn’t been a single sign of a wished pregnancy for the past five year, there had been _nothing_. Years of trying and hoping should’ve made this moment one of great joy and excitement for her, but instead Claudia felt a sense of great unease, dread even as she checked once more all seven pregnancy tests, all seven lined neatly out before her on the bathroom floor which she’d finished tiling two days ago.

Claudia couldn’t stop checking each of the tests, almost wishing that they’d changed.

There’s no denying that if she’d taken a pregnancy test at another time that she would’ve been jumping around and screaming with joy, or she’d simply cried tears of pure joy, but due to the great doubts she had about who had fathered the little life growing inside her there were no great displays of joy, or even a feeling of joy.

Claudia had never imagined she’d feel as horrible as she did when finding out she was pregnant, and it was all her own doing.

Claudia wants nothing more than to believe that her mistake with Jon’s little brother, her misstep, her moment of weakness hadn’t, couldn’t, result in her being pregnant with the child of a man who wasn’t her husband. She wants to believe that the baby is John’s and not Deucalion, but the loud and panicked part of her continued to scream about how long she and John had been trying to have a baby without results, and then pointing out how after sleeping with Deucalion just once here she was pregnant.

There wasn’t an excuse for what had happened between her and Deucalion, and she’d felt horrible about it the moment the passion ran dry. She’d promised herself immediately that she would never, ever, betray John again and had done her best to forget about that night but it seemed she couldn’t continue to pretend nothing had happened.

Claudia doesn’t know what to do, while also knowing deep down what she wouldn’t do.

Placing a shaky hand on her still flat stomach, Claudia knows that she doesn’t have the heart or will to abort the baby, not when she’s wanted a child for years. Claudia knows what will happen if she tells her husband about what had transpired between her and his overly charming little brother, a brother she’d never even known about, there was no doubt that John would leave her and end their marriage.

`Claudia, I’m home. ´ she hears suddenly from downstairs, the sound of John’s voice startles her and has her scrambling to clear away pregnancy tests.

`Claudia? ´

`I’m upstairs. I’ll be down in a second. ´ she responds while doing her best to try and shove the pregnancy test in the small trashcan beneath the bathroom sink, which isn’t easy since it was rather full by now. Cursing angrily at the four pieces of plastic that continued to escape the trashcan, Claudia doesn’t hear her husband make his way up the stairs and down the hall and heading towards the bathroom she’d been renovating.

When John appears in the doorway of the bathroom, she’s genuinely startled enough to flail and knock down the overflowing trashcan.

The smile on John’s face drops for a second as his gaze is drawn down to the floor, and by the way John’s eyes widen Claudia knows that he’s caught sight of at least one of the pregnancy tests, and before she can lie and say that they were negative he’s already picked-up one.

`Claudia. ´John whispers, voice so full of hope that it breaks her heart.

`Claudia, are you pregnant? ´ he asks her, voice shaky and she can’t bring herself to deny it now.

Just the tiny nod she gives is enough to cause John to smile brightly at her, the tears of joy she can’t cry appearing in his pale eyes of her husband.

`We’re having a baby. ´ John cries out excitedly, pulling her into a hug that at any other time would make her feel better and happier.

Claudia hugs her husband back tightly, the fear of losing John and his hugs helps make her mind-up, she wasn’t willing to lose her husband over a mistake.

*

There have been moments throughout her pregnancy when she’s come close to telling John about the possibility that the baby wasn’t his, most of the time when her brain and emotions have gone a bit bunkers , once or twice out of spite when John came home late or couldn’t find the ice cream she’d wanted and bought something else instead.

Somehow, _somehow_, she’d managed to hold her tongue, and she couldn’t be happier about it now that she watched her husband hold the baby for the very first-time, eyes so bright with joy and pride, gentle tears falling without shame, any thoughts about ripping John’s happiness apart crumbles at the sight of her husband.

Claudia knows now as she watches John from the uncomfortable hospital bed that she can’t_ ever_ tell John about the possibility that the child wasn’t his, not when he’d already expressed so much love and devotion for the child long before it was born. There’s also a part of Claudia, the mother in her, that doesn’t want her son missing out on the love John could provide, she wants the best for her child and John was the only man she’d trust to raise her child.

`I can’t believe you’re finally here, Mieczyslaw. ´ Claudia hears John whisper with genuine awe to the tiny bundle that would carry on the Stilinski name.

Although John had said early on in her pregnancy that she wanted to name their son after her father, but she hadn’t genuinely believed that he’d really saddle their child with the name of her father, but it seemed she’d been wrong.

Claudia can’t help but just stare up at her husband for a moment, watching him cradling the tiny baby in his arms as if baby was the most precious thing in John’s life, and at that moment she knew for certain that there was nothing John wouldn’t do to keep their son safe and happy.

`Mieczyslaw? ´ Claudia whispers, the already existing lump in her throat now grown twice its original size.

John peals his eyes away from the baby, and there’s something about the way he does it that makes her feel like it was one of the most difficult things he’d had to do.

`If that’s alright with you. ´ John says, there’s something almost apologetic about his voice, `I know you’ve been thinking about other names, but I just…´

Taking a deep breath and moving to stand close to the bed, John continues almost hesitantly, `Claudia, your father is the best man I’ve ever met, he was a good man, the sort I would wish my son to be. ´

Reaching out to take her hand, and hold it gently, John continues voice showing a degree of emotion that came with the grief of losing a loved one while also recalling the best and happiest memories shared with the person who had passed away, `I know that without your dad, without his support and guidance, I – I wouldn’t be here today. My life would be so different, in a bad way. ´

Claudia doesn’t like to think what John’s life could’ve been if her father hadn’t decided to John under his wing, the Polish immigrant with the thick accent and poor grasp of the English language had instead of calling the police on the shoplifting teenager offered the kid a safe place to stay in, and pushed John to follow his dreams.

`I want him to have a connection to one of the best men I’ve ever known. I want to be able to tell him one day the story behind his name. ´ John continues softly, turning his attention back to the baby that he continued to cradle close to his heart.

Although she might’ve never seriously contemplated about naming their son Mieczyslaw, she couldn’t help but feel rather touched by John wanting to name the baby after her father.

`Mieczyslaw Stilinski, ´ Claudia whispers softly, and although she can see his son complaining about the name later on in life, she couldn’t bring herself to try and change John’s mind when it came to naming their son; after what she’d done, the least she could do was give John this.

`You know, ´ Claudia continues after a tiny pause, during which she’d had to fight back the tears that had threatened to fall, nodding in the direction of the baby that had been in such a hurry to be born that the nurses and doctors on the maternity ward had joked her son had surely broken some record, ` he’ll probably hate us for saddling him with Mieczyslaw. ´

`Maybe briefly. ´ John says smiling softly down at the baby that had settled down perfectly in his arms, `Heck, he might even pick himself some boring nickname like Mike or even Steve, ´ Claudia can’t help but chuckle at the suggestion of Steve.

`But I doubt he’ll hate the name once we tell him about his grandfather. With every story he’ll grow proud of his name, and the history behind it. ´

`I really hope you’re right, John. ´ Claudia whispers then, watching as John finally sits down in the chair by the bed. John had been working one double-shift after another due to Sheriff’s bypass surgery and because there was a shortage of deputies, one had broken his leg while trying save their elderly cat from a tree and the other had fallen ill with a cold. John had looked dead on his feet as he arrived at the hospital, apologizing several times for missing the birth, but the moment he’d laid his eyes on the baby new life and energy had flooded into him.

Still, regardless of how awake and happy John had appeared after taking the baby into his arms, Claudia was glad he was finally sitting down.

Watching John holding their son, eyes full of life and love, Claudia can’t help but hope that the baby was indeed John’s, she’d spent many a night and day praying that the baby was by blood John’s and not Deucalion’s, and she would continue to wish upon every star that her son would forever and always be John’s son and not Deucalion’s.

Listening to John softly whisper kind and encouraging words, promises that she knew her husband would die trying to keep, she thinks for a moment about the man who’s name her son would now carry.

Claudia knows exactly how horrible she is for feeling almost glad, grateful even, that her father had died thirteen-days before Deucalion came knocking at their door.

Her father had always had this peculiar and somewhat disturbing instinct about things. Her father always seemed to know exactly who to trust and not to trust, who deserved a second-chance and who would waste such a chance. Claudia knows, she just knows, that if her father had been there and laid his greyish-blue eyes on her son that he would’ve known immediately if the father of her son was the man her father had loved like a son, or some stranger.

*

Making his way over to the kitchen table as quietly as possible while feeling exhausted after the long and trying day. Holding the empty glass in one hand, while in the other he held the bottle of whiskey he’d bought months ago, the bottle may have been opened several months ago but he’d yet to have consumed even the smallest of sips from the bottle.

John rounds the table all the while avoiding to look at the seat at the table that had been Claudia’s, there were several areas in the house he couldn’t look at without feeling the loss he’d suffered grow stronger within his broken heart.

Placing the glass and bottle on the table that had been left behind by the previous owner of the house, John ran a shaky hand over his face while a silent battle went on inside his mind. Still wearing the suite that he’d only worn once before today, John sat down at the table Claudia hadn’t wanted to replace even though one of the legs was shaky.

`_It has character. History_. ´ she’d said back when her body and mind were healthy and happy, and each time those words silenced him on the issue of replacing the table.

Breathing in a shaky breath, John reached for the bottle he’d yet to have a drink from, his thoughts on Claudia the only woman he’d ever loved, even now with terrible doubts about her faithfulness clawing at his insides the love he felt for her continued to sit firmly within his broken heart.

Tearful eyes drifted over to the small box that he’d kept hidden for a month and a half, a package he’d had delivered at his place of work due to the fear of his overly curious son would get his hands on it, a package he’d hid the same way he’d hid the bottle of whiskey. The small package that held the means to confirm a terrible claim true, or disprove the cruel words of his late wife.

Although John knows that Claudia hadn’t been herself for many months, years even, her mind had been playing tricks on her, this much he knew and had known when she began making dreadful claims about their Mieczyslaw or Stiles as their son preferred to be called these days; however, her words began to wear him down, words that now ran in his ears loudly and fuelling the doubt they had planted within his heart and mind.

`_Even if_ _that monster was my Mieczyslaw, even if it were him, that child wouldn’t be your son!_ ´ Claudia had screamed at him as he started to chase after their son who had disappeared while he’d been talking to Claudia’s doctor in private, a couple of nurses and an orderly trying to stop her from going after him, `_He’d be your fucking nephew_! ´

Sitting alone in the kitchen, the humming of the fridge, took a sip straight out of the bottle while he began to feel the dread that had sat in his belly for weeks grow heavier.

Thinking back now, John should’ve found it strange that Claudia didn’t push him to try and reconnect with his little brother and thus the rest of the family he ran from. John may have wondered briefly why Claudia hadn’t push him to contact Deucalion after the birth of their son, and he may have even felt tempted to ask why she didn’t pester him to call Deucalion and invite him to be a part of Mieczyslaw’s life; bringing the likes of Deucalion into their lives, the life of his son, would’ve meant that certain secrets of his life and family would’ve been forced into the light, secrets he’d wished to lay hidden for eternity and beyond.

Claudia’s behaviour when he’d returned home after the sudden visit of his brother had been odd, and that Deucalion would leave the house and Beacon Hills without trying to force some line of communication with him ought to have made him think something wasn’t right, but John had been glad to find his brother gone for it meant that he could continue keeping himself and his wife far from the supernatural world he’d ran from on his eighteenth birthday.

Sitting there alone with his thoughts, John couldn’t stop that terrible pearl of a doubt that had him questioning the paternity of the child sleeping upstairs.

The more John thought about Deucalion’s visit, the greater his sense of unease became and the more tempting the paternity test became. Certainly there was a part of him that made an attempt to convince him that Claudia’s claims that their son wasn’t his were untrue, and make them into the mad ramblings of a woman who suffered a terrible death of the mind and body, after all shouldn’t their son have already shown some signs of being a werewolf if he’d been Deucalion’s; of course, because his and Deucalion’s mother had been human when she had Deucalion, and that made it possible that Deucalion might have a human child instead of a born werewolf, a possibility that was a small one even if Deucalion’s partner was human.

_Surely,_ John thought anxiously, reaching out for the small package on the table and bringing it closer while taking another sip of the liquid that continued to burn the back of his throat, _Mieczyslaw is mine, after all he is as human as myself and Claudia. _

Opening the package oh so carefully, John ponders for a moment what might happen if the paternity test were to prove that he wasn’t the biological father of the child he called his son, would he call his brother and inform of it? What would Deucalion do? Would he take the child John loved and raised for years?

_Would I survive it_, John questions while unmoving for a moment, _can I survive losing Claudia and Mieczslaw_?

His uneasy thoughts fly out the window when the horrific scream erupts from upstairs, a scream that was blood curdling for it was so full of fear and distress that seemed to soak the whole house with a horrible sense of dread.

Immediately John rises from his seat at the table, his knee knocking against the unstable leg of the table, the bottle he’d been drinking from falling to the floor and the small opened package pushed by his hand across the table. The chair he’d been occupying falls to the floor, the bang ringing out in the small kitchen while he ran towards the stairs.

`Stiles! ´ John yells, his heart hammering dreadfully within his chest, his imagination painting dreadful things within his mind as he struggles to reach his son. Climbing the stairs, the screams of his son continuing unbroken but still changing with growing distress, and the slowness of his body makes John curse the slowness and clumsiness of his human body.

Reaching the top of the stairs, terrible thoughts growing greater within his mind, and he prays that none of them would be found within the bedroom of his son.

Fear clings tightly to his very core while the horrific screams continued on and on, and there is nothing he can do about it where is which makes the whole ordeal that much worse.

Feeling helpless, useless, John ran towards the smaller bedroom, the thought of perhaps finding Deucalion there ready to steal away his son plants itself firmly in his mind. Reaching the door that had once held the colourful letter spelling out the name John had picked for the child that was known to all in Beacon Hills as his only child, John swears that he would fight for the child regardless of who or what he would find terrorising his grieving son.

Ungracefully John stumbles into the room, completely prepared to battle to death for the well-being and safety of the child who screamed as if the hounds of hell had come for him.

John doesn’t pause his travel to reach his son, not even for second to look for possible threats. The only thing he sees, the only thing that has his full attention is that of his son screaming and kicking upon the small bed.

The covers and pillows lay on the floor now, as does the soft fox plushie that was much loved by his son.

Rushing towards the bed, John does not know what to think or do, for the tearful eyes of his son were wide and open and yet clearly unseeing. When he is close enough for his son to kick him in the balls that’s exactly what happens, and yet even with the pain that usually would’ve made him pause he moves to sit upon the small bed, earning a delicate elbow in the ribs, the back of Stiles’ head lands a blow to his nose while he does his best to pull his son into his strong arms. John ignores completely the blood that begins to trickle out from his nose, and wraps his child in his arms which were so familiar with the shape and weight of the only child he’d ever called his.

John suffers a few more hits and kicks before he’s got his screaming and crying child secure in his arms, delicate limbs now trapped securely. Holding his still screaming and struggling child close, John speaks words he can only hope will bring his child out of this frightful state that John is ill equipped to handle.

He can’t tell how long it takes for his son to stop screaming and fighting his hold, but what he knows is that once it does happen Stiles sinks into his hold, voice raspy and pained when the little boy speaks.

`Daddy? ´

`I’m here, son. I’m here. ´ John promises his son without doubt in his heart, for although he might have some doubts about whether or not he’d fathered the child in his arms, John knew that to Stiles he was a father and Stiles was to him a son, nothing would change any of that,

_Come morning_, John thought as his son begins to cry, _that goddamn test is going in the trash. _

**Author's Note:**

> Just to make it clear, John’s not a werewolf, doesn’t have a drop werewolf blood in him because John’s both birth-parents were human, and because his mom had still been human when she married Deucalion’s dad and then had Deucalion increased the chance of Deucalion’s child would be born human instead of a were; a chance that was increased it the mother of the child was also human, so yes, it stands to reason that Stiles is human.   
Oh my, what will happen when Deucalion comes back to Beacon Hills, all blind and not so stable, and he’s just bitter and angry with his brother. Certainly he’s smelled something interesting on Hale’s two betas, something that smelled like his brother but only in the way someone does when spending a lot of time with someone, and so it could’ve been a person who works with his brother that had crossed paths with the two betas; but there’s a scent there that sparks an uneasy interest in his wolf, something that makes the animal eager to find this person for some unknown reason. 
> 
> Deucalion does learn during his time in Beacon Hills, the short time before he goes to see his brother, that he has a nephew and it comes as a genuine surprise to him, and there’s a part of him that is hurt and angry that John never reached out to tell him he was an uncle. Then with the bitter anger in his heart now grown tenfold, Deucalion goes to the Stilinski house with Kali, and she snoops around the house while Deucalion sits in the John’s favourite chair waiting for his brother; when she comes back downstairs, she hands him Stiles pillow and as he breathes in the scent there his wolf growls out possessively, `I have a son. ´ 
> 
> When the Sheriff comes stumbling home an hour or so later, Deucalion is on him in a blink of an eye and growls into his face one simple question, `Did you know, brother? ´ and although John is startled to find Deucalion in town and in his house, he responds sharply, `Did I know what? That you fucked my wife? ´ 
> 
> `You knew. ´ Deucalion snarls into his face, and John spits out furiously, `I didn’t, not for many years. Wasn’t even sure about, until now. ´ 
> 
> `So, you’re claiming ignorance about the fact that the boy is my son. ´ Deucalion goes on to ask, sharp teeth sharp and dangerously close to his face, but Deucalion’s fangs aren’t as frightening as the realization that he hadn’t fathered his own son; and now he fears that Deucalion might try and take his son from him, not that John would let that happen without a bloody fight, he has a shovel and he has wolfsbane bullets.


End file.
